Satiety

Satiety tells you you have had enough food. But if you keep eating past the moment when your nutritional needs are satisfied, if you eat way beyond that moment, your satiety switch is broken.

Satiety feels like a garage door slamming down. One moment you want another bite. The next moment, another bite is the most repulsive idea in the world. Your mouth stays closed, you push the plate away, you don’t want to eat.

Is this experience entirely foreign to you? Day after day, do you try all sorts of tricks to keep yourself from eating and your appetite runs right over your plans like a galloping horse? Have you tried:

Making a firm decision.

Telling someone this is the day you will eat differently.

Brushing your teeth to keep from eating more.

Throwing the food out so no food is available.

Swearing to yourself you will not pass the drive-through on the way home.

Saying, “I’ll just have this one more ________, and then I’ll stop.

Hating yourself.

Being mad at yourself.

Signs on the refrigerator.

Pictures on the refrigerator.

None of these work for very long, do they? They can’t. Because your satiety switch is in your brain. If you don’t know how to turn your satiety on, your appetite switch will drive you to eat. It’s like a car with no brakes.

You can’t hold your breath for 10 minutes. You can’t make yourself not sleep for two weeks. You can’t make yourself not overeat. Whenever body chemicals are controlling you, you will not win in the long run. Body chemicals are more powerful than good ideas.